Hotter Than You Think

The global warming thing is starting to rouse my attention. Yes, I know that when the media spinmasters start bagging on something and won't let it go, that's the first sign that you had best be looking around for something else to happen. Don't know what the term for that is; let's just call it bait and switch. But really? Alligators in Topeka? Crocs in Pennsylvania? Enormous boa constrictors shedding their skins in Virginia? Bull sharks in Illinois? Piranhas in Oklahoma? What's next?

And all the above is true! A few decades back, a really large bull shark was caught (on a rod and reel, I believe), on the Mississippi at Alton, Illinois. Alton must be over a thousand river miles from salt water. If I am correct, the bull shark is the only such man-eater that can make it in fresh water. And so, since I think it's a safe guess that the Alton killer wasn't the only such shark in the Mississippi. . . . In theory, there are bull sharks in the Ohio, Missouri, Wabash, Tennessee, Illinois, Red, and Arkansas Rivers, as well as the little creeks that feed them. Nice thought. Next time you're thinking of wading a creek with your pet poodle, better think again.

While getting ready to wade the above creek, be on the look out for some smaller man-eaters. Not long ago, in Kansas or Oklahoma, I think, some hillbilly was fishin' and caught a . . . yep! a piranha! Have you ever seen one of these mean-looking little critters? For my money, I'd take my chances with a bull shark any day, rather than a pack of piranhas.

This spring, a three-foot alligator was captured at Lake Shawnee here in Topeka. Now, we nervous Kansans are almost positive that this specimen was released by some mental up here after the gator finished off the family pets; but the fact of the matter is, the gator, when found, was happy as a clam up here and sunning himself like a turtle on a log. No word yet on whether he/she/it had laid eggs.

Three days or so ago, a rather large crocodile was corralled in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Not sure where that is but it really doesn't matter. Anywhere in PA is further north than Topeka, so again, look out Kansas!

But the worst news of all, at least for we phobic ophids, is the news that the shed skin of a twelve-foot boa constrictor was discovered on rocks near Patrick Springs, Virginia. Whoa, Nellie Bell! Add all the others above and they still don't get my attention like this does! This place is only about 15 miles from where Deb and I were perched for three years. Had I any idea about such a thing, I would have never taken all those wonderful walks in the woods or down to the creeks. Come to think about it, we would have moved pronto had I known there were boa constrictors lurking in the Blue Ridge.

Sharks, gators, crocs, piranhas, boas . . . What's next: Monitor Lizards in Michigan? Global warming . . . better head's up!

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Debbie Does Books

Every time I step onto the porch there's another UPS package with yet another book to review. . . . It's like Christmas every day except getting the time for all this reading is not easy. In the meantime, just a quick overview of the titles piling up, since many I have only skimmed:

True West: Authenticity and the American West, edited by William R Handley and Nathaniel Lewis, University of Nebraska Press, paper. For decades, we've been debating what the West is, what it means, where it begins. These essays add to that understanding. From the work of Remington, to the interment camps of WWII, some fascinating glimpses into interpreting the West.

The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution: The Bloodiest Decade, 1910-1920, by Charles H. Harris and Louis R. Sadler, University of New Mexico Press. The authors are emeritus history professors at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, and they know their stuff. At nearly 700 pages, with stunning images and insightful footnotes, this is one volume that makes my mouth water.

Cowtown Wichita and the Wild, Wicked West, by Stan Hoig, University of New Mexico Press. With Hoig as the author, you can expect sound research and an interesting topic. This does not disappoint. By telling the story of Wichita, there is the greater telling of much of the settling of the West.

Jim Lane: Scoundrel, Statesman, Kansan, by Robert Collins, Pelican. The title says it all. James Henry Lane was a general of volunteers in the Civil War and the first U. S. Senator from Kansas. Controversial, crazy, cunning--Lane shaped the state of Kansas and left an imprint on national politics during the Lincoln administration. I can't wait to see how Collins has handled this subject.

The Border Between Them: Violence and Reconciliation on the Kansas-Missouri Line, by Jeremy Neely, University of Missouri Press. This is a subject near and dear to our hearts and Tom is writing a full-length assessment for the Civil War Book Review. In the meantime, a couple of comments: Neely has gone back to the beginning, to the Louisiana Purchase and relationships with native tribes to set the stage for the violent years of Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War, which I believe is helpful. He writes well and has valuable insight into the way geography and climate shape a region. It does take a while to get to the subject and there are NO images. Now, for Tom & me, as is the case with many of our readers, most of the images that would illustrate this subject are already known to us, like the painting on the cover by George Caleb Bingham, Orders Number Eleven. But for someone new to the field, images would be helpful.

Jo Shelby's Iron Brigade, by Deryl P. Sellmeyer, Pelican, just arrived yesterday and is chock full of wonderful images and at first glance appears thoroughly researched. Can't wait to get into this one.

All these have arrived, dear reader, since the arrival of Reading the Man, by Elizabeth Pryor, the new biography of Robert E. Lee. It is a tome, but a worthy tome, and I have savored it. It is excellent in every sense of the word and will become a standard. For all of you who thought you knew Lee, or longed to know Lee, this is your introduction.

Thank the Good Lord for books and mint juleps during the long, hot summer evenings. . . .

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Signs of the Times



"I can live with that!"

7.5.1950-Something

Dang! July the Fifth came and went and I failed to mention that noteworthy date in this blog.

Here in Kansas, just like in any other semi-civilized state, fireworks cannot be sold after July 4th. Well, a long time ago, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, Dad and I were on the slow road to Topeka. To get to the Capital City, the old man would often eschew the highways and choose this tiny gravel road that snaked over, around, under, and through a remote backwoods area known on the ridges above and beyond as Dog Hollar. The denizens within call it Greenwood Valley. This jumble of woods, bluffs and valleys was as close as Kansas could get to the "land that time forgot." Won't say all folks who lived in Dog Hollar were bad, ignorant, poor, or vicious, but most of those I knew WERE. Some lived in trailers, shacks and cabins and at least two families allowed chickens and pigs to come and go as they pleased, courtesy of torn screen doors.

Any way, there was one family in particular living out there who met most of the above criteria. I know 'cause my Dad visited the place at least once in his duty as a moonlighting TV repairman. The issue of this crew, a buck-toothed buck of a hillbilly about my age, was big and dumb as an ox, but not without a modicum of ambition, it seems. One hot summer he got it into his thick rock that he could get rich quick by selling fireworks to other Dog Hollarites. Sounded good in theory, I suppose, but. . . .

Now, there could not have been more than ten cars pass daily on that hilly, rocky, narrow, broken down, poor excuse of a road, even on its busiest heyday. But I guess the brilliant plan went something like this: Build it . . . and they'll come. So, the family dragged an old shed or chicken coop right up to the edge of the road, knocked out the wall facing the road, put a chair inside, stocked the mess with fireworks, then sat back and waited for the crowds to arrive.

On the day in question, July the Fifth, Nineteen Fifty-something, Dad and I rattled along the dusty gravel road and approached this crew's almost-hidden cabin. Suddenly, Dad and I were startled to see a white streak racing through the leaves and tree limbs, dashing straight for the fireworks stand. It was quite literally just a white blur. As we passed slowly by the hovel, we saw this backwoods capitalist, shoeless, shirtless, sitting with his feet propped up on the counter, arms crossed, and a satisfied smile spread across his face as though he had been there all day and business was brisk.

I guess this poor fool was so fretful about eating his loss that he was willing to risk even a state fine just to get rid of a little of it. For all I know, he's still there in his shack, trying to unload all that inventory. Even years later, at each retelling of this "July the Fifth" story, my Dad laughed till he cried.

Moral: You can take the billy out of the hills but you can't take the hills out of the billy.

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Caption of the Day






"Okay? . . . Good! . . . Now this button flushes it."

Hosts

During our travels, when we were barnstorming the country as history hustlers--pitching talks, selling books, and researching new yarns to put in the books--Deb and I discovered that perhaps 90% of all volunteer campground hosts were just first-rate folks, thank God--warm, wonderful, welcoming. The other 10% can best be described as puffed-up petty tyrants. My take on this latter group is thus: Many of these people were bossed around for most of their adult lives; now that they were finally in charge of something, they were determined to do a little bossing of their own.

I remember an incident that occurred at Greenbrier State Park, near Hagerstown, Maryland. We had pulled in very early in the afternoon and for as far as we could see we were the only ones in this large, beautiful park. After finding a campsite and unhitching the trailer, we jumped back in the truck for the drive up to the gate where we would pay our fee. The quickest way back was the wrong way on a short one-way. I had not gone thirty feet, when from nowhere the campground host pounced.

"You're going the wrong way on a one-way!" snapped the old man with gray buzz cut. "You're going the wrong way!!"

From the stern look in the little fellow's eyes, it was clear that I had committed a crime of the highest order. Feeling like a felon caught in the bright spotlight, I meekly turned around and drove back the right way, even though it took several minutes to do so and the wrong way took less than ten seconds–-with absolutely no risk to anyone. Rules were rules, however, and the satisfied junior ranger had struck another blow for truth, justice and the American way.

After writing the above, it occurs to me that it might not have been such a wild coincidence that the above took place where it did. With the exception of Lebanon, Missouri (where I was almost beat up one night by a gang of hillbillies as I hitchhiked through town wearing my military uniform--I refused to pay their $5 "toll"), there is no town on the globe that I dislike more than Hagerstown, Maryland. On our initial brief trip to this otherwise interesting and picturesque place, the first significant sight that met our gaze was a whore, a pimp and a john arguing in the middle of a sidewalk in the middle of the town in the middle of the day. On our next quick trip to the city, a road-rager blasted me and my Kansas tag for not being as familiar with the streets as he and for causing him maybe a two second delay in his important mission. A year or so after that encounter, we spoke to the Hagerstown Civil War Roundtable. Nice, polite, and normal-looking people; but reserved and remote people. In fact, the entire crowd literally sat ten or more paces from our podiums, even though there were rows of seats up front. This seemed odd. Without exception, in every other place where we had spoken people were clamorous to get as close as possible that they might see and hear better. The following day, Deb walked out of a local bagel shop empty-handed. A look of frustration was stamped on her face. The bagel shop was out of bagels and no one inside seemed in any rush to bake more.

Deb may have nailed it when she observed that Hagerstown was "neither/nor;" it wasn't really Southern, it wasn't really Northern. "The place is caught somewhere in between," she ventured, "and what you get is Southern inefficiency coupled with Northern inhospitality." Thinking back, perhaps the letter-of-the-law campground "host" was a denizen of this contradictory city called Hagerstown.

Generally, those camp hosts who comprise the bad 10% are fossil folks. They are usually crabby, crotchety and cast a suspicious orb on any new camper who enters their domain and who appears to be under the age of seventy. You can see in their eyes that they already suspect that you, the newcomer, are either a dope smuggler, a dope dealer or a dope doer who probably plays dope rock at dope decibels. After a few days, when their suspicions are proven wrong on all counts, the hosts continue to cast a wary eye when you fail to bake cookies and visit other RVs or when you neglect to display the accepted symbols of modern mature camping, viz., a satellite dish, a hummingbird feeder, and a wooden name plate that reads "The Larsens, Lappland, Minnesota" or "Vern and LaWanda Bodine, Hormel, Texas (Deb and I have considered making a similar sign: "Jerry and Sally Mander, Peculiar, Missouri")."

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The Warren Earp/Western Heritage Days in Willcox, AZ, celebrates the life of the lesser-known Earp brother this Friday through next Sunday. Activities include a dinner theater performance, music, storytelling and kids' activities. Performances by trick roper Loop Rawlins and singer Rollie Stevens kick off the festival at 6 p.m. Friday at the Willcox Middle School gymnasium. Tickets to the dinner show cost $14.50. Saturday starts with a 9 a.m. parade down Railroad Avenue, followed by activities at Railroad Park. The events wind up on Sunday with a breakfast and cowboy church from 7 to 8 a.m. at Windmill Park. Information: 1-520-384-2272, or http://www.warrenearpwesternheritagedays.com/.

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Photo of the Day

This & That

Murder! What on earth is going on at America's "fun" parks? Over the past several weeks there have been at least a dozen incidents resulting in death and injury, mostly the former. Another accident just yesterday. You gotta know, coming just now, this is the worst possible thing that could happen, financially, to Disney, Six Flags, etc. I know kids are much more indifferent (stupid) about such things and they will probably pile on a wild ride even were the odds 50-50 of being killed, but I'll be danged if I go aboard another thrill ride until they make 'em safer. Maybe it's not such a bad thing after all that Wild West World in Wichita closed.

The above recalls a time I spent at a fair with my kid. While he was off somewhere, I found some shade and watched a carnival worker operate a thrill ride. This guy was the classic: long, greasy hair, baseball cap, tank top revealing tattoos of daggers and dragons, his entire upper grill missing teeth, a quick, nervous smoke when all were aboard and flying around. He seemed like a happy--if none-too-bright--guy and when his two-ton flame appeared, he seemed even happier. When she returned five minutes later, she handed her man his lunch. It was a chili dog or two and a sno-cone. I was a little surprised. I never imagined that people who worked in a carnival actually ate the junk they serve at a carnival. Point being: We go to a fair or fun park and entrust our lives to drug using drop-outs who eat a diet of corn dogs and cotton candy, who are under-paid, bored and indifferent, and then we wonder why something goes tragically wrong on a ride.

On a similar note: Last week, about 20 miles from here, two men working on a communication tower fell to their deaths. Apparently a cable broke, pitching the two down. That tower was about 1,000 feet high, or roughly the same size as the World Trade Center. Since it takes an average human body about one second to fall one hundred feet, I think anyone can do the math. That's a terribly long time to fall. I don't have to look to Iraq for heroes; nor do I need watch a baseball all-star game. No, my heroes are real handy. Cops, firemen, farmers, linemen, sanitation workers, electricians, grain elevator workers--anyone who deals with death and injury on a daily basis to make my life a little easier and safer, there is my hero!

On my bike ride yesterday, I saw the first Prez bumper sticker of the season parked outside a liquor store. Bad omen I think for the little Dem/Repub garden party: "Vote Ron Paul."

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Greetings Tom

I visited with Terry (Hobbs) this afternoon and she mentioned your tour to Atchison and St. Joe. Unfortunately we have a wedding that day. . . . If not for that, we would be there in a heartbeat. I absolutely LOVED the trip to Fort Leavenworth and hope you keep us in the loop for future excursions. . . . Have a good trip and hope to be on the next adventure. Tom . . . Scalp Dance is fascinating.

Judy Theis (right)
Topeka, Kansas

TG: Hi, Judy. Until your email, didn't even realize there was a tour this weekend! Talk about out of "the loop!" Deb packages all these trips and I am the mere driver and gofer, as you might recall. Sorry you can't make it. You are a fun component on any tour.

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"Stay the Course, Praise the Lord . . . and Pass the Bananas!"